Background Although the importance of clinical ethics in contemporary clinical environments is established, development of formal clinical ethics services in the Australia health system has, to date, been ad hoc. This study was designed to systematically follow and reflect upon the first 18 months of activity by a newly established service, to examine key barriers and facilitators to establishing a new service in an Australian hospital setting. Methods: how the study was performed and statistical tests used A qualitative case study (...) approach was utilised. The study gathered and analysed data using observations of service committee meetings, document analysis of agendas and minutes, and semi-structured interviews with committee members to generate semantic themes. By interpreting the thematic findings in reference to national capacity building resources, this study also aimed to provide practice-based reflections for other health agencies. Results: the main findings An overarching theme identified in the data was a strong commitment to supporting clinicians facing difficult patient care decisions and navigating difficult discussions with patients and families. Another key theme was the role of the new clinical ethics support service in providing clinicians with a pathway to raise system-wide issues with the organisation Executive. While there was strong clinical engagement, consumer and community participation remained a challenge, as did unresolved governance issues and a need for clearer policy relationship between the service and the organisation. Conclusions: brief summary and potential implications Considering these themes in relation to the national capacity building resources, the study identifies three areas likely to require ongoing development and negotiation. These are: the role of the clinical ethics support service as a link between the workforce and the Executive; the incorporation of consumers and patients; and ethical reasoning. To improve the effectiveness of the service, it is necessary to increase clarity on the service’s role at the governance and policy level, as well as develop strategies for engaging consumers, patients and families. Finally, the capacity of the service to reflect on complex cases may be enhanced through explicit discussions of various different ethical frameworks and ways of deliberating. (shrink)

The blind bandit -- Zuko alone -- The chase -- Bitter work -- The library.

This article seeks through Ejagham women’s experience in the ritual dances of Ngbokondem and Moninkim to engage the notion of patriarchal control of African women’s sexuality in ‘female genital mutilation’ discourses as postulated by second-wave feminist theorists such as Daly, Koedt, Hosken and so on. A firmly based patriarchy threatens culture, sexuality and identity; the article shows how women use varied coping mechanisms, including aid schemes, sexual insurgency and even breaking of bodies to define their place and identity in a (...) patriarchal society. However, some Ejagham women’s practices are themselves laced with patriarchal violence where women postulate as main participants. The article coins the term ‘triple patriarchy’ to capture this phenomenon. It portrays how Ejagham women, who are interrogating domination, also act in ways that reinforce patriarchy. Using womanist theological lens as the hermeneutic framework, the article concludes that women initiation practices are the foundations through which women grasp the meanings of Christian initiation rituals such as baptism, eucharist, marriage and so on. Hence, they should not be destroyed but fine-tuned; for there is more about the women’s practices that need to be engaged than labelled. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir a questão da materialidade significante do corpo no enlace discursivo do político imbricado nas fronteiras com o social, a partir das obras de Dan Halter. Para tanto, proponho um diálogo teórico-analítico entre a perspectiva dialógica desenvolvida pelo russo Mikhail Bakhtin e a perspectiva do materialismo-histórico, tendo como base o dispositivo teórico da Análise do Discurso francesa, a fim de analisar o objeto de estudo em questão na relação corpo, memória e discurso. Nesse sentido, (...) ao trabalhar com a imbricação entre a materialidade verbal e não verbal, busco lançar olhar sobre duas obras do artista zimbabueano Dan Halter, considerando, desse modo, os efeitos de sentido que deslizam metafórica e metonimicamente para outros sentidos do corpo que se desdobram em diferentes imagens do sujeito, tendo em vista os processos de estruturação do conflito e da tensividade do/no social a partir dos espaços ocupados por estes corpos e atravessados que são pelo simbólico, pela ideologia e pela história. ABSTRACT This article aims to discuss the question of the signifying materiality of the body in the discursive interlacement of the political imbricated on the frontiers with the social, based on the works of Dan Halter. To this end, we propose a theoretical-analytical dialogue between the dialogical perspective developed by Russian Mikhail Bakhtin and the historical-materialism perspective, based on the theoretical assumptions of the French Discourse Analysis, in order to analyze the object of this study in its relation with body, memory, and discourse. In this sense, by working with the imbrication between verbal and non-verbal materiality, we intend to focus on two specific works by Zimbabwean artist Dan Halter, considering the meaning effects that slide metaphorically and metonymically to other senses of the body that unfold in different images of the subject, in view of the processes that structure the conflict and tensivity of the social from the spaces occupied by these bodies and crossed by the symbolic, by ideology, and history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ManifestsRachel Blau Duplessis (bio)O great classic cadences of English poetry We blush to hear thee lie Above thy deep and dreamless.—Denise Riley, Mop Mop GeorgetteThat tall white pasture clump that we call cow parsnip, Queen Anne’s lace magnified, are, in Latin, umbellifers, a flat-topped or rounded flower cluster. But sometimes people call them “umbrella flowers.” This work is closer to umbrella flowers than to umbellifers, down there on (...) the ground with bricolaged theorizing practices, folk etymologies, my poetry, and intransigent details. That was a tribute to the essay as woodsy ramble [Good xii and x].And to the essay as personal—a way of marking and mocking the professional codes and impersonal solemnities of the representation of thought. If saying “I” like a heroine will adequately undermine unsituated false universals, I’ll say “I” yes I will. “I” will report that in 1966 or so I diminished all the way down to a scant handful of one-line poems, and to gnomic statements, barely effective. The kind of development they needed was not rhetorical but historical.I, Lady, you are my true love’s lady. You stand in the middle of the room, Sunlight streaming around you. Sunlight takes hold of the seeds in you And wets them. I want to hold myself to you, But you are myself. Can I?This 1966 fragment issues directly from, and is a preternatural reminder of a passionate problematic—questions of gender, in relation to an engagement with poetry, poetry figured as a set of psychosocial and intellectual institutions imbuing a practice of writing in lines. This fragment knew and represented issues, points of political and cultural contradiction about the construction of authorship and the poetic career before their maker could see them as such. The fragment was a cognitive act, not just in autobiography. It functioned as a probe of a situation then almost invisible and always underacknowledged; to have understood it then, one would have needed the cultural apparatus precipitated (though not elaborated) by a social movement—second wave feminism, something that had not yet occurred.Despite mirroring each other in a dramatic hinged appositive, with Lady as hinge (“I, Lady, you”), the female “I” is separated by the very concept “Lady” from her addressee, one traditional addressee of poems, the female “you.” “Lady” is both hinge and barrier; she belongs to “my true love”—a charming and smug ballad turn, filled with idealizations of class and sexuality. Yet the “I” wants to hold this “you” figure to herself, actualizing in female-to-female attraction the long half-life of a Petrarchan structure of feeling in order to create female authorship. Now that gesture could be interpreted as desire (in a [End Page 31] lesbian, matrifocal, or preoedipal plot), or as self-aggrandizing forms of egoistic desire. Is the desired embrace regressive? immature? narcissistic? self-serving? greedy? masturbatory? (all these having been thought of as bad attitudes with a bad press—one might now wonder). Fueled by an ambisexual or polysexual suggestiveness, the poem makes a wobbly declaration of vocation in its desire to embrace singular, hieratic woman herself, yourself, myself. Yet as pronouns multiply, a serious problem is accosted. “But you are myself. Can I?”The fragment stops, startled, where the cultural problem began. Authorship was compromised and almost aborted; in any event, these issues, which seemed to me, in my (then commonplace) ignorance of female cultural production, to have no analogues, pointed me toward total blockage. The “can I” is not simply a personal questioning of my own powers, but concerns general contingencies of gender and female place in culture, a then invisible social horizon. Am “I” forbidden to poetry by one—but one key—law of poetry—the cult of the idealized female? Should “Lady” be ditched totally? or examined? both? and how to poke at a Petrarchanism that seems utterly belated, never uniformly hegemonic, and not, after all, the whole content of poetry? (As I bear down upon it, it recedes, is evasive.) Yet any number of writers do take “Lady” for granted as one of the institutional assumptions of poetry. Many male writers get to say Lady early and often... (shrink)

A partir del análisis de dos publicaciones de Jane Addams sobre el empleo doméstico (como una “industria atrasada” que requiere “ajuste”), en este artículo abordamos la producción teórica de científicas sociales de finales del XIX y principios del XX sobre las relaciones laborales desde una perspectiva de género y, en particular, sobre el “problema de las sirvientas.” A través de ello, exponemos la particular filosofía y epistemología de Addams y su defensa de una “ética social” por encima del “imperativo familiar.” (...) Las tesis de Addams son comparadas con las de otras teóricas sociales de la época que introdujeron “lo político, lo económico y lo social” en el hogar: las contribuciones de Jessie Taft desde el interaccionismo simbólico sobre la necesaria conciencia social de las mujeres como motor de cambio ante el conflicto subjetivo entre aspiraciones y oportunidades; los análisis sexo-económicos de Charlotte Perkins Gilman o las condiciones de la “democracia en el hogar” de Lucy Salmon. Terminamos con el cuerpo de conocimiento generado a finales del XIX sobre la “cuestión del servicio doméstico,” particularmente a partir del texto clásico de referencia, Domestic service de Salmon (1897), e investigaciones posteriores sobre las empleadas domésticas negras. Concluimos, con ello, con las limitaciones del “punto de vista feminista” cuando no estaba atravesado por la conciencia de clase y de opresión racial. (shrink)

Studies in the psychology of visual expertise have tended to focus on a limited set of expert domains, such as radiology and athletics. Conclusions drawn from these data indicate that experts use parafoveal vision to process images holistically. In this study, we examined a novel, as-of-yet-unstudied class of visual experts—architects—expecting similar results. However, the results indicate that architects, though visual experts, may not employ the holistic processing strategy observed in their previously studied counterparts. Participants (n = 48, 24 architects, 24 (...) naïve) were asked to find targets in chest radiographs and perspective images. All images were presented in both gaze-contingent and normal viewing conditions. Consistent with a holistic processing model, we expected two results: (1) architects would display a greater difference in saccadic amplitude between the gaze- contingent and normal conditions, and (2) architects would spend less time per search than an undergraduate control group. We found that the architects were more accurate in the perspectival task, but they took more time and displayed a lower difference in saccadic amplitude than the controls. Our research indicates a disjunctive conclusion. Either architects are simply different kinds of visual experts than those previously studied, or we have generated a task that employs visual expertise without holistic processing. Our data suggest a healthy skepticism for across-the-board inferences collected from a single domain of expertise to the nature of visual expertise generally. More work is needed to determine whether holism is a feature of all visual expertise. (shrink)

Animals, Equality and Democracy examines the structure of animal protection legislation and finds that it is deeply inequitable, with a tendency to favor those animals the community is most likely to see and engage with. Siobhan O'Sullivan argues that these inequities violate fundamental principle of justice and transparency.

This paper rejoins the debate surrounding Thomas Tymockzko’s paper on the surveyability of proof, first published in the Journal of Philosophy, and makes the claim that by attending to certain broad features of modern conceptions of proof we may understand ways in which the debate surrounding the surveyability of proof has heretofore remained unduly circumscribed. Motivated by these historical reflections, I suggest a distinction between local and global surveyability which I believe has the promise to open up significant new advances (...) in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Sounds are audible, and sound sources are audible. What is the audible relation between audible sounds and audible sources? Common talk and philosophy suggest three candidates. The first is that sounds audibly are properties instantiated by their sources. I argue that sounds are audible individuals and thus are not audibly instantiated by audible sources. The second is that sounds audibly are effects of their sources. I argue that auditory experience presents no compelling evidence that sounds audibly are causally related to (...) audible sources. The third is that sounds audibly are related mereologically to their sources. I present and offer a defence of this third candidate. (shrink)

Calvin Blanchard (1808–1868) was a prolific, albeit repetitive, author, publisher, and printer who was identified by L. L. and Jessie Bernard as an early American sociologist who helped introduce Americans to Auguste Comte. The Bernards also said that Blanchard was mentally ill.1 The Bernards’ discussion of Blanchard is the only recognition of Blanchard that predates the reprinting of one of his novels, The Art of Real Pleasure (1864), in Arthur O. Lewis’s 1971 American Utopian Literature set of forty-two volumes. (...) The Bernards’ discussion is also unusual in that it includes works in addition to The Art of Real Pleasure, and it is one of two that, while disparaging him, take him somewhat seriously. The other work .. (shrink)

I propose a theory of freedom of choice on which it is a variable quality of individual conscious choices that has several dimensions that admit of degrees, even though - as many theorists have traditionally supposed - it also has as a necessary condition the possession of a capacity that is all or nothing. I argue that the proposed account better fits the phenomenology of ostensibly free actions, as well as empirical findings in the human sciences.

In The Idea of Prison Abolition, Tommie Shelby evaluates arguments for and against the elimination of incarceration as a mode of punishment. In this article, we discuss and expand upon Shelby's arguments, using two very different systems—those of Norway and the United States—as examples to illustrate some general principles.

Paradigms in philosophy and cognitive science until recently have treated perception in typical human beings as relatively fixed and unchanging. Recent research instead supports the claim that perception can be altered over time by training, deliberate practice or mere exposure. If so, we do not all bring to a scene the same stock of perceptual capacities, and our differences are not just deficits or superpowers. This paper describes six questions an account of perceptual learning ought to address, which pose difficult (...) challenges to Kevin Connolly’s (2019) groundbreaking Offloading View of perceptual learning. In light of these questions, it sketches an alternative simple view according to which perceptual learning is acquiring a new or enhanced perceptual capacity in a particular way. The relevant capacity is a capacity perceptually to detect and differentiate a feature, where doing so constitutively if not wholly implicates perception. The relevant way is by means of an independently characterized learning process, rather than by adaptation, pure development, or mere accident. The perceptual change thus results from a smart process – one that is flexible, resilient, and responsive to feedback, rather than rigid, fragile and brute. Such a process can yield perceptual know-how. Thanks to perceptual learning, one comes to know how to perceive, in a sense that means being able to do so. Some specialists hone this to develop perceptual skills that are implicated in expert performance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Trinity by Thomas Joseph White, O.P.:A Model of Living ThomismSerge-Thomas Bonino O.P."The human being naturally seeks wisdom." From the very first line of the magisterial work we are dealing with, Fr. Thomas Joseph White's 2022 The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God, it is all about wisdom. Wisdom was already at the heart of a previous work by Fr. White devoted to the natural (...) theology of St. Thomas, his 2009 Wisdom in the Face of Modernity. Wisdom is more than the accumulation of information or the juxtaposition of knowledge. It is an eminent form of knowledge that, on the one hand, involves the person of the thinker in all its dimensions, intellectual, emotional, existential, and on the other, seeks to understand its object in the light of the most fundamental causes, which are simultaneously the most enlightening and explanatory principles because they are the most universal. The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God is undoubtedly a work of wisdom. Fr. White grasps the entire Christian mystery from its Trinitarian source, since, as we shall see, the entire Mystery (in the Pauline sense of the economy of salvation in Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Father's benevolent purpose) is at the same time rooted in the eternal mystery of the triune God and makes it known to us as it unfolds its truth and saving power in time.But the sapiential nature of the object studied has some effect on the form of the work itself. Indeed, if Fr. White were not Rector Magnificent of the Angelicum, he would be a magnificent architect, because he possesses a sense of order to the highest degree and knows how to introduce unity in diversity. The presentation of The Trinity is perfectly structured, and therefore very [End Page 461] clear and didactic. Among many other factors that create its unity, I was especially interested in the highlighting of what the philosopher André de Muralt calls "structures of thought": similarities of proportionality between the ways in which authors from even very different theological epochs have treated a problem.1 I am thinking for instance of how Fr. White shows the strong structural similarities between contemporary Trinitarian theologies and the three types of medieval Trinitarian theology (the Franciscan, the Thomist, and the Nominalist). "My claim here is that the modern Trinitarian tradition tends to reproduce various elements of the medieval traditions, … albeit in creative and unexpected ways" (399). So it is a conceptually well-unified work, and where there is unity, there is being, goodness and beauty.The introduction, as I said, is placed under the sign of wisdom. Fr. White takes up there the neo-Scholastic theme of the "three wisdoms": philosophical wisdom, theological wisdom, and mystical wisdom.2 The book's perspective is explicitly that of theological wisdom, as a scientific form of the intelligence of faith, but (we shall return to this point in connection with the place given to philosophy) it puts into practice in an exemplary manner the collaboration, without confusion or separation, between the three wisdoms.3My purpose, of course, is not, nor can it be, to "summarize" the contents of a book of more than seven hundred pages, which manages to be both a comprehensive handbook for higher theological education and a true personal theological essay. I will therefore limit myself to highlighting three partial but significant aspects.(1) The first is the explicit and overt Thomistic character of the book (see 6–7). The Trinity is in fact a vibrant plea in favor of the relevance of the theology of St. Thomas, as indicated by the very last sentence:The Church today can and should still have recourse to the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and to the living Thomistic tradition, as a privileged means of interpreting and advancing her own understanding of the mystery of God.(690) [End Page 462]The Trinity is the demonstration in actu exercito of the truth of this concluding statement. I therefore propose to reflect, in the first part of my paper, on the nature of Fr. White's Thomism, which depends, as we... (shrink)

Recent studies within neuroscience and cognitive psychology have explored the place of conscious willing in the generation of purposive action. Some have argued that certain findings indicate that the commonsensical view that we control many of our actions through conscious willing is largely or wholly illusory. I rebut such arguments, contending that they typically rest on a conflation of distinct phenomena. Nevertheless, I also suggest that traditional philosophical accounts of the will need to be revised: a raft of studies indicate (...) that control over one’s own will among human beings is limited, fragile, and – insofar as control depends to an extent on conscious knowledge – admitting of degrees. I briefly sketch several dimensions along which freedom of the will may vary over time and across agents. (shrink)

Mit Inkrafttreten des Sozialgesetzbuches V, das in seinem §137 auch Krankenhäuser zu Qualitätssicherung verpflichtet, kann sich seit Ende der 80er Jahre kein Fachgebiet der Medizin mehr gegenüber der Teilnahme an qualitätssichernden Maßnahmen verschließen. Die gesetzlichen Grundlagen zur Einhaltung von Normen und definierten Abläufen zur Reproduzierbarkeit von Ergebnissen, die für den labormedizinischen und apparativen Bereich in der Forschung und Technik schon länger bestehen, haben den Bereich der medizinischen Versorgung erreicht [10, 11, 18]. Ziel der Maßnahmen ist es, die Struktur-, Prozeß- und (...) Ergebnisqualität der medizinischen Versorgung zu beeinflussen und einen immer besseren Stand der Versorgung zu erreichen („continuing quality improvement“/Qualitätsspirale). So sind nicht nur Steigerungen der Lebensqualität behandelter Patienten, Verbesserungen der Versorgungsstruktur und des Arbeitsumfeldes, der Aus- und Weiterbildung der medizinischen Berufsgruppen, sondern auch ökonomisch relevante Kosteneinsparungen durch Prozeßoptimierung möglich. Allerdings sind qualitätssichernde Aspekte in der medizinischen Behandlung und das Bewußtsein für die Berufsethik durchaus nicht neu. Bereits in der Antike war der zufriedene, erfolgreich behandelte Patient ein Aushängeschild für den behandelnden Praktiker und im Interesse der Gesellschaft. In vielen Kulturen gab und gibt es oft religiös begründete, berufsethische, gesetzliche Grundlagen oder auch traditionelle Riten dazu, wie Erfolg und Mißerfolg der Behandlung eines Menschen durch einen Arzt bestraft oder eben belohnt werden sollten. (shrink)

Abstract: The systemic role of corruption and its link to low human development is explored. The extractive resource industry is presented as an arena where conditions for corruption—monopoly and discretion without accountability—are especially intense. Corruption is maintained by a self-reinforcing cycle. Multiple stakeholders are involved in the maintenance of and/or opposition to the cycle: investing corporations, host country regimes and officials, inter-governmental bodies like the OECD, industry associations, non-governmental organization (NGO) watchdogs like Transparency International, and international agencies facilitating global investment (...) like the World Bank. Complementarity of interests between the demand and supply sides provides strong incentives for entrenched players to maintain corruptive relationships, to protect past gains and sustain current ones. Compulsory international regulation, maximum transparency, effective detection, and enforcement are recommended to enhance accountability, thereby reversing the cycle. It is also necessary to create a corporate culture built on integrity, if regulation itself is to succeed. (shrink)

Um teste.--Entre o moderno e o contemporâneo.--Ferrucio Busoni e a história.--Três mini-reflexões.--Uma herança que ainda pesa.--Uma questão em aberto.--A existência: problema incontornável em filosofia.--Nota sobre a recuperação da unidade real.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Logic of God Incarnate. By THOMAS V. MORRIS. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. Pp. 220. $19.95. Thomas V. Morris, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has written a technical yet provocative study on the Incarnation. As a faithful Christian he believes in and desires to defend the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation proclaimed in the New Testament and defined by the (...) early councils of the Church, especially Chalcedon, that is, that Jesus is the One eternal Son existing in two natures. He also holds that, while the truth of the Incarnation is revealed, it must nonetheless stand the test of logic and reason. The Incarnation cannot be illogicaJ or meaningless. " If the church has been guided by God in such matters as the formulation of its creeds, conciliar decrees, and catechisms,.... we would not expect glaring logical flaws in its central doctrinal affirmations" (p. 46). The stated purpose of Morris's study is to defend the traditional doctrine against those who would hold it to be logically incoherent and meaningless. "In the course of thinking about the Incarnation for some years now, I have come to see that a few simple metaphysical distinctions and a solid dose of logical care will suffice to explicate and defend the doctrine against all extant criticisms of a philosophical nature" (p. 9). Morris meticulously analyzes and critiques a number of arguments that oppose the possibility of coherence of the Incarnation by attempting to demonstrate that such arguments are.either false and illogical themselves, or that they do not apply to a true understanding of the Incarnation. Moreover, Morris proposes a novel understanding of the Incarnation which he believes is both logical and intelligible, and which conforms to the Christian tradition. This goal of upholding the intelligibility of the Incarnate leads Morris to a three-fold task. He first of all must refute his chief adversaries, those who would deny the sensibleness of saying God became man in Jesus. Such critics deny the validity of the Incarnation on the ground..'! that it is meaning·less, and the'l'efore impossible to juxtapose the incommensurable. attributes of divinity and humanity, e.g., perfection/imperfection, immutability/corruptibility. They hold that Jesus could not have had both these sets of properties at once (cf. p. 20). Morris refuses to capitulate to such arguments. He nevertheless insists that any solution to the issue which would undermine human logic or which would fail to uphold the Christian's belief is no solution at all (cf. p. 32). 367 368 BOOK REVIEWS Secondly, Morris's task leads him to refute any attempts at a " OneNature " solution, which would "squash" together the human and divine natures in Jesus to form a single nature. Such proposals jeopardize either the integrity of Jesus's divinity (Arianism) or his humanity (Docetism, Monophysitism), inevitably composing a mythical tertium quid (cf. pp. 33-38). Morris presents a clear case against such corruptions of the Incarnation. Thirdly, Morris's task brings him to analyze contemporary kenotic Christology. He thoroughly discusses this approach, for the reason that it is directly involved in the issue at hand, namely, the incompatibility between divine and human properties in Christ. Secondarily, however, Morris's interest in kenoticism reflects his own hope that some variation of the approach might posibly arrive at a Christological solution (cf. p. 92). While he ultimately rejects kenoticism, Morris flirts with the various alternatives, and, as we shall see, his own perception of the Incarnation remains tinged with a kenotic flavor. How then is it possible to predicate of one and the same individual divine and human attributes intelligibly and coherentlyT To use contemporary computer jargon, the question might be phrased: is it possible that God and man can he "incarnation-friendly¥" Morris believes so. Morris first of all sets out to define the terms-divine nature and human nature. He believes part of the incompatibility problem lies in attributing to Jesus's humanity unnecessarily hostile aspects. He distinguishes between being "merely human" and being "fully human"· To be " merely human " is to possess not only those properties that narrowly define one's nature or kind, such as rationality, but... (shrink)

Sobre el libro: Isaiah Berlin ha sido, además de un original e intuitivo historiador de las ideas y autor de numerosos conceptos teórico-políticos, un reconocido teorizador de la libertad y defensor acérrimo del pluralismo. Rasgos que lo han convertido en un innegable referente intelectual en nuestra época. Sobre el editor: El Editor de la presente obra, Pablo Badillo O'Farrell, con motivo del centenario del nacimiento de Berlin, ha reunido un número de contribuciones de estudiosos italianos y españoles que ofrecen, desde (...) muy diferentes perspectivas, un amplio abanico de miradas diversas sobre la obra y el pensamiento del autor, que van desde el análisis y confrontación del pluralismo valorativo y la ética de la libertad, al de la interculturalidad o la identidad personal y el nacionalismo, pasando por la confrontación de historicismo, historia de las ideas y contra-corriente. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nature as Guide: Wittgenstein and the Renewal of Moral Theology by David Goodill, O.PCajetan Cuddy and O.P.Nature as Guide: Wittgenstein and the Renewal of Moral Theology. By David Goodill, O.P. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. Pp. xiii-319. $75.00. (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3445-8.Nature as Guide is an intriguing reevaluation of the philosophical legacy of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the light of Thomistic moral theology after the Second (...) Vatican Council. Goodill helpfully lays out his fundamental argument in the book’s introduction: Wittgenstein can help the philosopher to reconcile the “modern dichotomy between nature and reason,” and the theologian to reevaluate “the associated oppositions typical of modern thought, such as that between moral agency and natural agency or between grace and nature” (2). The author is overt in his appreciation for Fergus Kerr’s 1997 monograph Theology after Wittgenstein. Nonetheless, Nature as Guide is unique insofar as it focuses on specifically moral theological issues in a moment of theological “renewal”—one in which we can recognize “the restoration of metaphysics to the center of theological debate” (12).The first four chapters of Nature as Guide consider Wittgenstein in relation to themes associated with classical philosophy. Goodill’s “objective in the first part of the book is to construct a dialogue between Wittgenstein and the metaphysical tradition which illuminates both conversation partners” (38). This initial part of the book culminates in an account of human nature that serves as the foundation for the moral theological inquiry that follows in the second part (the fifth through the eighth chapters).In the first chapter (“What Lies Hidden: Wittgenstein, Metaphysics, and Moral Theology”), Goodill introduces Wittgenstein’s “philosophical practice”—specifically his “insistence on grounding philosophical enquiry in everyday thinking” that effectively “connects him to the [metaphysical] tradition that begins with Plato and Aristotle” (16). Goodill is perceptive and nuanced in his analysis of Wittgenstein’s texts. He recognizes that “it would be wrong to treat [Wittgenstein] as an unproblematic inheritor of this tradition” (37). Nonetheless, he wants his readers to appreciate the careful balance between theory and praxis maintained in Wittgenstein’s thought vis-à-vis the priorities of classical philosophy. To this end, he examines G. E. M. Anscombe’s account of how Wittgenstein helped her to overcome the “trap” of phenomenalism.In the second chapter (“Nature, Logic, and Grammar”), Goodill attends to the progress of key tenets in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. He identifies as “the guiding theme” of this narrative “the development of Wittgenstein’s understanding of the relationship between the meaning and the application of linguistic expressions” (40–41). Specifically, he suggests that Wittgenstein’s “mistake” in the Tractatus (51) can be reduced a fundamental point: the erroneous presupposition that there is “one general notion of clarity which is required in all contexts. It was precisely this requirement which Wittgenstein came later to reject in the Investigations” (52). Indeed, between the Tractatus [End Page 703] and the Investigations Wittgenstein abandoned his efforts to establish a “forced unity” of language through “the general form of the proposition”—turning, instead, to “our actual linguistic practices” (85). The whole of human life, thus, “provides the unity of our grammar” (ibid.). Nonetheless, Goodill also points out that Wittgenstein does not reject “the central insight” of the Tractatus, namely, “that meaning is internal to our forms of representation” (59). This immanence remains throughout the Tractatus and the Investigations.The third chapter (“Grammar, Teleology, and Understanding”), summarizes objections to Goodill’s proposal that Wittgenstein can be read in continuity with the metaphysical tradition. William Charlton “argues that in the absence of a teleological conception of nature Wittgenstein’s account of language collapses into pragmatism” (88-89). Rush Rhee “accuses Wittgenstein of being misled by his analogy between language and games to neglect the basis of our linguistic practices in the human search for universal understanding” (89). In brief, both “Charlton and Rhee argue that a much richer conception of our natural human capacities and reactions is required than that provided by Wittgenstein”—and they do so in a complementary way (103). Although Goodill does not believe that their objections stand above... (shrink)

Many current theories of human rights are flawed in that they fail to recognise differences between fundamental human rights and others of lesser significance. If some rights are superior to others than it is possible to formulate a hierarchy of rights, and rules to resolve potential conflicts of rights. Only by self-examination can we determine what is personally significant in how we live meaningful and directed lives. This in turn aids in defining social values and determining the rights individuals should (...) reasonably expect to be provided by society. (shrink)

Are new democracies with divided government and volatile parties politically ill fated? The literature suggests so, but cases of emergent democracies such as Taiwan and Brazil that face both conditions defy the prediction. This paper explains why: party volatility follows from pursuing distinct executive and legislature agendas under divided government; the political ambition that underlies these conditions sustains democratic and even political performance. We evaluate the argument through government spending in Taiwan. The results corroborate our expectations: they show more parties (...) composing the legislature as government spending favors an executive agenda and neglects a legislative welfare-spending agenda. The findings make three contributions to the literature: first, they reveal a political divide between executive and legislature rather than ideological parties to undercut concerns regarding performance. Second, they demonstrate that the strategic use of government spending to institutionalize party development along an executive agenda fuels party fragmentation. Third, they show that legislators split, switch, or create alternative routes to office in reaction to strategic spending to underscore that ambition underlies party volatility and divided government. (shrink)

Studies concerning the relationship between religion and mental health have provided substantial evidence for the existence of a positive relationship. Nevertheless, it remains largely unclear which aspects of both religion and mental health take part in this relationship. The present study uses multiple measures of religion and of mental health to obtain a more refined view of this relationship. The results show the importance of distinguishing between if a person believes and how a person believes. Religious persons who have a (...) symbolic attitude towards religion scored higher on positive aspects of mental health. No significant results were found for negative mental health. (shrink)

Мета. У сучасному глобальному суспільстві під питанням виявилися традиційні цінності, у тому числі патріотизм і героїзм. Однак нові виклики гібридної війни потребують нових виявів героїзму, а отже, і його нового філософського осмислення. Основною метою цієї статті є філософсько-антропологічне осмислення героїзму як граничного вияву сили духу, що поєднує інституційні засади суспільного блага та індивідуальну волю до його досягнення. Теоретичний базис. Феномен героїзму досліджено в класичних працях Гомера, Плутарха, Томаса Карлайла. Важливі сучасні філософсько-антропологічні інтерпретації цього феномену надають Фрідріх Ніцше, Гельмут Плеснер та (...) Альбер Камю, згідно з якими героєм може стати кожна людина за умови виявлення нею сили духу та незламного прагнення до боротьби і перемоги. Феномен героїзму тому набуває масовості і, хоча ніколи не може бути тотальним у суспільстві, однак може стати предметом виховання і самовиховання. Наукова новизна. Сила духу воїна відображена в його повсякденній стійкості (resilience), яка не має гендерної визначеності. Її яскраві втілення в сучасному суспільстві можна простежити на прикладі героїзму, самовідданості й наполегливості воїна в умовах гібридної війни. Ці нові втілення не лише підтверджують сталі філософсько-антропологічні уявлення про героїзм, але й надають йому нових рис. Висновки. Сучасне переосмислення героїзму на прикладі граничного вияву сили духу в умовах гібридної війни дало можливість уточнити його філософсько-антропологічну концепцію. Зразкова непохитність і послідовність у виявленні демократичних цінностей у вкрай несприятливих для цього обставинах робить сучасними героями не лише професійних військових, але й усіх громадян, які демонструють свої найкращі соціальні чесноти в захисті соціальних інститутів демократії. Сучасна гібридна війна створює фронтир героїчного протистояння тоталітаризму в глобальному масштабі. Сучасний герой постає як взірцевий громадянин своєї національної держави і водночас демонструє чесноти справжнього представника світового громадянського суспільства. (shrink)